Download Item:

Abstract:

FOR the last few years considerable attention has been given to the
condition of the working classes. One of the most obvious tests of
that condition is the state of their dwellings, and as I have daily
opportunities of observing these, the present question is one that
often passes through my mind. It is generally allowed that the
dwelling or the house accommodation is closely connected with the
improvement and elevation of the occupier. Let any one become
acquainted with some of the poorer classes in the streets in which
they generally live, and let him try to point out the duty of charity,
the evil of drunkenness, or let him dwell on higher interests, and
tell of the time and place when sorrow and death will be no more,
he will find the most serious obstacles to his teaching in the state of
things around him; that the wretchedness by which he is surrounded
certainly does not open the poor man's mind to charity and love,
that squalor and destitution are most serious hindrances to his entertaining
those just views of Providence, which are as essential to
human happiness as they are to leading the mind to more solemn
convictions.